A History of English Literature

on, which combined to produce the exquisite if not extraordinarily strong school of Caroline poets, did not work in it. Of its own bar

the British Solomon, and sometimes continued to produce it until far into the reign of his son. Especially there are some of much mark who fall to be noticed here, because their work is not, strictly speaking, of the schools that flou

r not at all ridiculous. He was certainly a Kentish man, and probably the son of a London clothier. His birth is guessed, on good grounds, at 1563; and he was educated at Southampton under the famous refugee, Saravia, to whom he owed that proficiency in French which made or helped his fame. He did not, despite his wishes, go to either university, and was put to trade. In this he does not seem to have been prosperous; perhaps he gave too much time to translation. He was probably patronised by James, and by Prince Henry certainly. In the last years of his life he was resident secretary to the English company of Merchant Venturers at Middleburgh, where he died on the 28th September 1618. He was not a fortunate man, but his descendants seem to have flourished both in England, the West Indies and America. As for his literary work, it requires no doubt a certain amount of g

neous character and wholly in verse, though in subject as well as treatment often better suiting prose) is voluminous, and he might have been wholly treated (as he has already been referred to) with the verse pamphleteers, especially Rowlands, of an earlier chapter. But fluent and unequal as his verse is-obviously the production of a man who had little better to offer than journalism, but for whom the times did not provide the opening of a journalist-there is a certain salt of wit in it which puts him above the mere pamphleteers. His epigrams (most of which are contained in The Scourge of Folly, undated, like others of his books) are by no means despicable; the Welsh ance

long to effect

Wit, as vass

, howe'er unri

, though repin

pleased (O la

fect her pleas

asons to her r

orld, gets lo

true a thousa

cience, will d

ld not willing

d swayed be by

he multitude

y to him his s

t doing justice to the minor as well as to the major luminaries of the time: while the difficulty is complicated by the necessity of not saying ditto to the invaluable labourers who have reintroduced him and others like him to readers. I am myself full of the most unfeigned gratitude to my friend Dr. Grosart, to Professor Arber, and to others, for sparing students, whose time is the least disposable thing they have, visits to public libraries or begging at rich men's doors for the sight of books. I should be very sorry both as a student and as a lover of literature not to possess Davies, Breton, Sylvester, Quarles, and the rest, and not to read them from time to time. But I cannot help warning those who are not professed students of the subject that in such writers they have lit

entered Parliament in 1601, and after figuring in the Opposition during Elizabeth's last years, was taken into favour, like others in similar circumstances, by James. Immediately after the latter's accession Davies became a law officer for Ireland, and did good and not unperilous service there. He was mainly resident in Ireland for some thirteen years, producing during the time a valuable "Discovery of the Causes of the Irish Discontent." For the last ten years of his life he seems to have practised as serjeant-at-law in England, frequently serving as judge or commissioner of assize, and he died in 1626. His poetical work consists chiefly of three things, all written before 1600. These a

ious twins of

e Spartans danc

tas) dance in

ited with e

s, their doubl

carried with

ing in their

t, wherein the

rs entangled

nce, their arm

seem the ot

wits another

ulcan, and o

ense that forgè

forms of dancin

ese, a hundred

invent, he t

sture, and wit

ate, now humbl

the persons

fit, and best a

thine, sweet

s a solem

erform l

resembles

Queen o

esh beauties

pect, doth

f young Lo

both do cau

pleased w

art thou, a

attracti

both, lik

his made

sweet May

th like in

author of Licia. The exact dates and circumstances of their lives are little known. Both were probably born between 1580 and 1590. Giles, though the younger (?), died vicar of Alderton in Suffolk in 1623: Phineas, the eld

penserian stanza ababbccc, keeping the Alexandrine but missing the seventh line, with a lyrical interlude here and there. The whole treatment is highly allegorical,

like a lady

f she slumber

en skies her

s of Heav'n wer

, set with the f

uce, and the rou

their azure l

rs, that sparkle i

y bank her h

wer of Vain-del

oses for her fa

resses marigo

e displayed lik

ean the glad d

her yellow l

lets in their pret

here depaint

violets, her

orient colour

n with living

hman, armed wit

im hid in hi

ery wind thei

ly sleeps, nor t

he flowers

esh as mo

l the vir

right Aur

all unl

their v

o a summ

rn and now

ng doth

danger

gather th

t, or it

and of Ta

osom cast

lleys' swi

se is yea

ape of e

ruis'd to m

housand kin

p my train

ld of lad

mbers to

rs in Heave

ousand mor

d thy kn

shall thy w

es only, the quintet of Giles being cut down to a regular elegiac quatrain. This is still far below the Spenserian stanza, and the colour is inferior to that of Giles. Phineas fo

rn lets out t

s path with go

wan, and star

locks up in

nch'd, and Heaven

: to th' hill th

began to end h

s! shall teach

durst peep fr

rnt for fear t

iefs to silent

teach to chang

larms, or hum

ajesty, and lof

ad Spirit! she

me, into my

creeping mea

igger notes, a

use thy fierce

oft strain to

ty song; thy bat

wert within t

famous poet,

s heart to frame

r thy glorious

holy fisher

ght with sparklin

aven to Earth in those

y of almost any English poet. Phineas, moreover, has, to leave Britain's Ida alone, a not inconsiderable amount of other work. His Piscatory Eclogues show the influence of The Shepherd's Calendar as closely as, perhaps more happily than, The Purple Island shows the influence of The Fa?rie Queene, and in his miscellanies there is much musical verse. It is, however, very noticeable that even in these occasional poems his vehicle is usually either the actual stanza of the Island, or something equally elaborate, unsuited though such stanzas often are to the purpose. These two poets indeed, though in poetical capacity they surpassed all but one or two veterans of their own generation, seem to have been wholly subdued and carried

643. Browne was evidently a man of very wide literary sympathy, which saved him from falling into the mere groove of the Fletchers. He was a personal friend and an enthusiastic devotee of Jonson, Drayton, Chapman. He was a student of Chaucer and Occleve. He was the dear friend and associate of a poet more gifted but more unequal than himself, George Wither. All this various literary cultivation had the advantage of keeping him from being a mere mocking-bird, though it did not quite provide him with any prevailing or wholly original pipe of his own. Britannia's Pastorals (the third book of which r

ay

swains give

y flood ha

ds else; an

springs, yet

newt, no

banks make

journey f

ne'er happ

r on brims

taste! This s

othing tast

nceived in

esh! Let n

fish, make

margent sti

which have the

e dust upo

e Tagus' g

h good bet

t favour sh

e bird the ch

osom, and for

peedy flights

'd he went and

many cherries s

he brings than

strawberries

colours as he

white, some red

fear'd, they blus

een, oft with

in the fattest

m the stalk to

som for accep

the grove or

ourishment the

erful herb

ood the teeming

tmost industry

for chaste Mar

nces, such as appear in the finest passages of St. Agnes' Eve, and Hyperion, in the Ode to a Grecian Urn, and such minor pieces as In a Drear-Nighted December, Browne had nothing. But he, like Keats, had that kind of love of Nature which is really the love of a lover; and he had, like Keats, a wonderful gift of expression of his love.[57] Nor is he ever prosaic, a praise which certainly cannot be accorded to some men of far greater r

ertainly, of a quaint defence of retainership, Sword and Buckler (1602), and of other poems-Pastoral Elegies, Urania, Polyhymnia, etc.-together with an exceedingly odd piece, The Metamorphosis of the Walnut-Tree of Boarstall, which is not quite like anything else of the time. Basse, who seems also to have spelt his name "Bas," and perhaps lived and wrote

dern publication. What the excuse is we shall say presently. Wither was born at Brentworth, in the Alresford district of Hampshire (a district afterwards delightfully described by him), on 11th June 1588. His family was respectable; and though not the eldest son, he had at one time some landed property. He was for two years at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he speaks with much affection, but was removed before taking his degree. After a distasteful experience of farm work, owing to reverses of fortune in his family he came to London, entered at Lincoln's Inn, and for some years haunted the town and the court. In 1613 he published his Abuses Stript and Whipt, one of the general and rather artificial satires not unfashionable at the time. For this, although the book has no direct personal reference that can be discovered, he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea; and there wrote the charming poem of The Shepherd's Hunting, 1615, and probably also Fidelia, an address from a faithful nymph to an inconstant swain, which, though inferior to The Shepherd's Hunting and to Philarete in the highest poetical worth, is a signal example of Wither's copious and brightly-coloured style. Three years later came the curious per

uching on his part with the rather unusual result of improvement-a fact which would seem to show that he possessed some critical faculty. Such possession, however, seems on the other hand to be quite incompatible with the productio

with those l

are thy lov

pourèd oi

e savour o

sweetness

are in lov

owing almost unb

th water

ss from o

imes ofte

are fain

n with such absolute spontaneity and want of premeditation as Wither. The metre which was his favourite, and which he used with most success-the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven syllable

times, I

urn not w

e her serv

ve: but O t

erefore,

t grow sic

would do s

rdinance

some conc

gazer

e no more

s his worth

, a grace t

ring though

rthless m

ed of one

Destin

dgments blin

n the power

eauties, in

oth as m

every ju

ldeth her

t excell

me by those

aptive to

appiness

vers shoul

time (he thought fit to apologise for it later) had a very happy knack of blending the warm amatory enthusiasm of his time with sentiments of virtue and decency. There is in him absolutely nothing loose or obscene, and yet he is entirely free from the milk-and-water propriety which sometimes irritates the reader in such books as Habington's Castara. Wither is never mawkish, though he is

as that Pool; a

otten marsh n

rgrown with bo

rudely, then,

llow, nor a

flag, nor reed,

rdered, was a gr

ots, set round a

through the wat

o'er with whit

s it; and the

ise, and wash t

pluming, sate,

goose, and the

locks of fowl, w

iet waters br

dded a frequent inspiration of pure f

train as

Tuscan po

of his own, often ad

mmond of Hawthornden, and Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Both, but especially Drummond, exhibit equally with their English contemporaries the influences which produced the E

ilettante, rather effeminate, equally unable to appreciate Jonson's boisterous ways and to show open offence at them, and in the same way equally disinclined to take the popular side and to endure risk and loss in defending his principles. He shows better in his verse. His sonnets are of the true Elizabethan mould, exhibiting the Petrarchian grace and romance, informed with a fire and aspiring towards a romantic ideal beyond the Italian. Like the older writers of the sonnet collections generally, Drummond intersperses his quatorzains with madrigals, lyrical pieces of various lengths, and even with what he calls "songs,"-that is to say, long poems in the heroic couplet. He was also a skilled writer of elegies, and two of his on Gustavus Adolphus and on Prince Henry have much merit. Besides the madrigals included in his sonnets he has left another collection entitled "Madrigals and Epigrams," including pieces both sentimental and satirical. As might be expected the former are much better than the latter, which have the coarseness a

child, sweet fa

roach peace to a

st to shepherd

of minds whic

ming rod, all b

with forgetful

e to spread th

alas! who cann

ne, O come, bu

, which thou ar

solace ease a

od, thou do d

lt, and what th

ss the image

delightf

fair rad

yield, beneath

ish'd Heav

58] lamp

rts which with you

ng suns y

compared with

f not Hells, ye

s (if we t

) are green, no

fair, whatever

ir because they

but not English he

s raised to the peerage. He died in 1640. Professor Masson has called him "the second-rate Scottish sycophant of an inglorious despotism." He might as well be called "the faithful servant of monarchy in its struggle with the encroachments of Republicanism," and one description would be as much question-begging as the other. But we are here concerned only with his literary work, which was considerable in bulk and quality. It consists chiefly of a collection of sonnets (varied as usual with madr

tched with a d

things unwort

at which cann

pain accordi

n to cast my

ghts o'er base a

vulgar course to

hings delight

y this plague m

rld with wonde

ned that long

more miracu

hich long lang

, but yet a

ho comma

sidents

ll things

have ord

ldling c

them t

stled in

ovidenc

this peop

gments to

eir wrath

tals who

s to them

e in the

of th' Ear

t thou of

ns thy co

t still in

wast born

egister

that non

s ordain'

ns would h

ey thy wa

of force

canst d

son woul

should serv

ot heirs

there is

with restl

a drachm

s whenas

s do wrath

a spac

geance t

our bos

informs

in pleas

s no ca

of Heav

y heart e

fashion, and because their education, leisure, and elegant tastes lead them to prefer that form of occupation. But perhaps what is most interesting about them is the way in which they reproduce on a smaller scale the phenomenon presented by the Scotch poetical school of the fifteenth century. That school, as is well known, was a direct offshoot from, or following of the school of Chaucer, though in Dunbar at least it succeeded in producing work almost, if not quite, original in form. In the same way, Drummond and Alexander, while able to the full to experience directly

even in our own times. Francis Beaumont, the coadjutor of Fletcher, has left independent poetical work which, on the whole, confirms the general theory that the chief execution of the joint plays must have been his partner's, but which (as in the Letter to Ben Jonson and the fine stoicism of The Honest Man's Fortune) contains some very good things. His brother, Sir John Beaumont, who died not so young as Francis, but at the comparatively early age of forty-four, was the author of

rming but rather oddly entitled Poems of Raleigh, Wotton, and other Courtly Poets in the Aldine Series. I say oddly entitled, bec

site "Queen and Huntress," which is perhaps the best-known piece of his whole work; the pleasant "If I freely may discover," and best of all-unsurpassed indeed in any language for rolling majesty of rhythm and romantic charm of tone-"Drink to me only with thine eyes." Again the songs in Beaumont and Fletcher stand very high, perhaps highest of all next to Shakespere's in respect of the "woodnote wild." If the snatch of only half articulate poetry of the "Lay a garland on my hearse," of The Maid's Tragedy, is really Fletcher's, he has here equalled Shakespere himself. We may add to it the fantastic and charming "Beauty clear and fair," of The Elder Brother, the comic swing of "Let the bells ring," and "The fit's upon me now;" all the songs without exception in The Faithful Shepherdess, which is much less a drama than

dearest, w

ghtning f

rrow, 'ti

y they ca

a g

s to

ools that lo

ore, are w

are, and s

lling, some

n first taug

till

in

love to

re yet, can

icken sore

wise, a

n are as wi

n I

h wi

they both

racian Wonder, attributed to Webster and Rowley, contains an unusual number of good songs. Heywood and Massinger were not great at songs, and the superiority of those in The Sun's Darling over the songs in Ford's other plays, seems to point to the authorship of Dekker. Finally, James Shirley has the song gift of his greater predecessors. Every one knows "The glories of our blood and state," but this is by no means his only good son